Monthly Archives: July 2014

Haaretz’s Correspondent for the Occupied Territories and Israel’s Prime Minister Each Have Something to Say

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Amira Hass was born in Jerusalem in 1956 and has been covering Gaza and the West Bank for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz since 1993. She lived in Gaza for three years and has lived in the West Bank for the past seventeen.

Below is most of a recent article of hers. Her thesis is that “Israel’s attack on Gaza is revenge for the Palestinians’ refusal to accept occupation”. 

Quote: 

“There is method in madness, and the Israeli insanity, which refuses to grasp the extent of its revenge in Gaza, has very good reasons for being the way it is. The entire nation is the army, the army is the nation, and both are represented by a Jewish-democratic government and a loyal press. The four of them work together to stave off the great betrayal: the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize the normalcy of the situation.

The Palestinians are disobedient. They refuse to adapt….The insistent, steadfast demonstrations in West Bank villages have not even scratched the surface of the Israeli faith in the normalcy of our domination of another people. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement did manage to confuse our ego a bit, but it is still not enough to make Israelis want to get the message. The Palestinian reconciliation government seemed to move us another step forward; it had the potential to embark on the path of rejecting the show of normalcy dictated by Israel, but too many forces within Fatah and Hamas did not support it.

Then it was the turn of Hamas’ rockets to disturb the occupier’s rest. Say what you will about it, but they succeeded in doing what the demonstrations, the boycott of Tapuzina orange drink and the concert cancellations did not….

Nation, army, government and press: You have eyes and ears, yet you will not see and you will not hear. You still hope that the Palestinian blood we have already shed and have yet to shed will win a long-term lull, which will bring us back to occupation as usual….

And boy, are you competent when you want to be. The armed Hamas operatives who emerged from the tunnel shaft on Kibbutz Nir Am on Monday were dressed as Israeli soldiers….“Finally, thanks to an aerial photograph taken by a drone, they were found to be Hamas operatives” because “they were carrying Kalashnikov rifles, which the Israeli army does not use”.

So the photographs taken by the drone can be very precise when its operators wish. It can discern whether there are children on the seashore or on the roof — children who, even for the legal acrobats in the Justice Ministry and the army, are not a justifiable target for our bombs. The drone can also discern that a rescue team has arrived to pull out wounded people, that families are fleeing their homes… But for some reason, the eye of the drone that can tell the difference between various makes of rifles cannot tell that this figure over here is a child, and that is a mother or a grandmother….

The Israeliness of the moment is like that drone. It chooses to see blearily. It clings closely to the good, comfortable life of a master nation, unwilling to allow its subjects to interfere with it. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon translated that into political language when he said, “We will not agree to recognize the reconciliation government, but other arrangements such as controlling crossing points is something we can accept. [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud] Abbas will control the crossing points, but he will not control the Gaza Strip itself.”

That is the routine we are cultivating. Gaza and the West Bank are cut off. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, but under conditions that we dictate, just as Fatah and the Palestinian Authority “rule” in their pockets in the West Bank, in accordance with our conditions. If the Palestinians need to be tamed at times, we will tame them with blood and with more blood. And peace be upon Israel.”

End quote.

Concurrently, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu brought up Nazi Germany, comparing Israel being bombarded by those troubling but generally ineffective Palestinian rockets to England’s suffering at the hands of the Germans in World War II. From Jerusalem Online:

PM Benyamin Netanyahu met British Foreign Affairs Minister Philip Hammond and compared Israel’s condition in these days to the condition in Britain in World War 2. “Israel’s condition is similar to Britain’s when it was bombed as well”, said Netanyahu, clarifying that Israel’s intention is to go forth with the operation: “There is no guarantee of a hundred percent success, however IDF has shown impressive achievements in the field and we are moving forward with this operation… We aim our fire at those who fire rockets at us”.

An estimated 40,000 people died in England during the Blitz. Since the latest hostilities began, three Israeli civilians have been killed by Hamas and fewer than 30 in the past 14 years. The Palestinian death toll just this month is now over 1,000, mostly civilians, with bodies still being recovered during the temporary cease-fire.

If we’re going to talk about the Nazis, a more apt comparison is to their infamous response to resistance movements in occupied countries. From Wikipedia:

The Kragujevac massacre was the murder of Serbian, Jewish and Roma men and boys in Serbia by German Wehrmacht soldiers on 20 and 21 October 1941. All males from the town between the ages of sixteen and sixty were assembled by German troops and [Serbian collaborators]  and the victims were selected from amongst them.

Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel had issued an order on 16 September 1941, applicable to all of occupied Europe, to kill 50 communists for every wounded German soldier and 100 for each German soldier killed.

The victims have become victimizers.

beit hanoun

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph J. Ellis

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American Creation is an excellent summary of what Ellis calls “the Founding Era”, defined as the 28 years between the start of the War for Independence in 1775 and the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

The author’s method is to focus on six key periods or events: the 15 months between the violence at Lexington and Concord and the signing of the Declaration of Independence; the Continental Army’s winter at Valley Forge, “a pivotal moment” when George Washington realized he could not win the war by winning full-scale battles with the British; the political battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists to ratify the Constitution; the approval of the Treaty of New York in 1791 between the United States and the Creek Nation; the beginning of party politics with the creation of the original Republican Party by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, mainly in response to Alexander Hamilton’s proposed Bank of the United States; and finally the Louisiana Purchase, when President Jefferson doubled the size of the United States but set the stage for the Civil War by ignoring the issue of slavery’s expansion to the new territory.

Being relatively ignorant about the history of this period, it was especially surprising to read about Thomas Jefferson’s checkered career and the creation of the first Republican Party, which later became the Democratic-Republican Party and eventually split into two parties, the Democrats and the Whigs (it’s ironic that the current Republican Party is known as the Grand Old Party, even though the Democratic Party is 30 years older). Jefferson and his follower Madison engaged in all kinds of bad behavior premised on the bizarre idea that people like Washington and John Adams wanted to restore monarchy to America.

The other especially surprising story is the attempt by members of Washington’s administration to create a policy that would protect the interests of the Indians east of the Mississippi. The Creek Nation occupied much of the American South and was lead by Alexander McGillivray, an expert negotiator who was only one-quarter Indian. McGillivray eventually agreed to the Treaty of New York, which reserved a large part of the South for the Indians and included the promise that Federal troops would stop any further settlement in the area by American colonists. As with most treaties between the United States and the Indians, the agreement was immediately broken by the Federal government, mostly because there weren’t enough Federal troops to enforce it.   

One of Ellis’s principal conclusions is that the struggle over the balance of power between the central government and the states was built into the Constitution from the beginning and has defined much of American history, even to the present day. My conclusion is that we’ve been lucky to do as well as we have, given the political and economic conflicts that have existed since the Founding Era and will apparently never be resolved.

Unorthodox Views on Israel and Gaza

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Below are some unorthodox views on what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. They’re not necessarily unorthodox in the religious sense, and they’re definitely not unorthodox in most of the world, but they’re out of the mainstream with respect to public opinion and government behavior in both Israel and the United States. 

To back up a little: I’ve been struggling this week to write another post about the massacre in the Gaza Strip. “Massacre” is a more appropriate term than “war” given the numbers published today by Haaretz (Israel’s oldest daily newspaper):

In Gaza, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge surpassed the 800 mark, most of them since Israel entered Gaza a week ago. Israel military fatalities stand at 35 since the operation commenced.

It should also be noted that at least one Israeli civilian has been killed as the result of a Hamas rocket attack.

I’m not sure why this subject has got such a hold on me, since people are being massacred in other places, but I think it’s because so many apparently sensible people insist on defending what Israel is doing. For example, here are selections from three letters printed in The New York Times a few days ago (two other letters were critical of Israel’s behavior):

As to Israel’s response to Hamas [the “Islamic Resistance Movement” voted into power in Gaza in 2006], it is proportional to the number of missiles launched against us. Whether these missile attacks are successful or not is not the point… They have the potential to wreak havoc…So far Israel has been concentrating on destroying tunnels that cross the border and missile stockpiles. I consider that a “proportional” response. As in any war, sometimes people are hurt or killed. Israel has nothing to apologize for.

It is a credit to Israel’s moral stature that it is doing everything it can to limit the killings of innocent civilians in Gaza…

Please report about the civilian bomb shelters in Gaza. Wait, there are none. Instead, Hamas uses its citizens as human shields for munitions and to increase Israeli casualties for the media.

It’s true that Hamas has launched thousands of rockets toward Israel in the past 14 years, which is clearly a violation of international law, but those rockets have caused fewer than 30 civilian deaths. That’s why the author of the first letter only claims that Israel’s actions have been proportional to the missiles launched and not to the actual effect of those missiles, which are unguided and usually don’t hit anything. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Force (the IDF) announced a few days ago that it had already struck more than 3000 targets in Gaza using its very high-tech weaponry. Since Gaza is about the size of Philadelphia, that’s more than 20 targets per square mile. And since 1.8 million people live in Gaza (300,000 more than in Philadelphia), it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the bulk of the Palestinians casualties have been civilians and a large percentage of those civilians have been children. 

Stating that “sometimes people are hurt or killed in war”, as the author of the first letter does, obviously (I’d say “obscenely”) downplays the extent of this massacre. If the Israeli armed forces are truly doing everything possible to limit civilian casualties, as the second author claims, their efforts are clearly failing. As for whether it’s all Hamas’ fault for not building bomb shelters and storing weapons near people (remember, we’re talking about an area the size of Philadelphia but with a bigger population), the powers that be in Hamas are certainly at fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the Israelis who have chosen to proceed with their massive assault anyway.

All of which finally brings me to the other unorthodox opinions I wanted to share.

First, after seriously considering the consequences, an Israeli named Etgar Keret wrote an article for his fellow citizens that’s been translated and reprinted by The New Yorker (the full article, which isn’t long, is well worth reading):

In the past week I’ve seen and heard the popular statement “let the I.D.F. win” more and more frequently. It’s been posted on social media, spray-painted on walls, and chanted in demonstrations. Lots of young people are quoting it on Facebook, and they seem to think it’s a phrase that arose in response to the current military operation in Gaza. But I’m old enough to remember how it evolved: first formulated as a bumper sticker, …it contains within it the twisted world view that has been guiding Israel for the past twelve years….

Twelve years, five operations against Hamas (four of them in Gaza), and still we have this same convoluted slogan…. In each of these operations there have been right-wing politicians and military commentators who pointed out that “this time we’ll have to pull all the stops, take it all the way, until the end.” Watching them on television, I can’t help but ask myself, What is this end they’re striving toward? Even if each and every Hamas fighter is taken out, does anyone truly believe that the Palestinian people’s aspiration for national independence will disappear with them?

It’s an awful thing to make a truly tragic mistake, one that costs many lives. It’s worse to make that same mistake over and over again….The only thing that actually changes is Israeli society’s tolerance for criticism. It’s become clear during this operation that the right wing has lost its patience in all matters regarding that elusive term, “freedom of speech.” In the past two weeks, we’ve seen right wingers beating left wingers with clubs, Facebook messages promising to send left-wing activists to the gas chambers, and denunciations of anyone whose opinion delays the military on its way to victory….This road is not a circle, it’s a downward spiral, leading to new lows….

More optimistically, Peter Beinart, an American Jew who is a professor at New York University, suggests a way out of this situation for both Israel and the Palestinians in an article for Haaretz called “Israel’s Best Weapon Against Hamas”, which is also well worth reading in full:

The short answer is that I’d treat the [Hamas] rockets as military symptoms of a political problem. That doesn’t mean Israel shouldn’t return fire. If Hamas and Islamic Jihad can attack Israel with impunity, they may never stop. But returning fire—or even invading Gaza—will never make Israel safe….

So what would I do? First, I’d seek a cease-fire that eases those aspects of Israel’s blockade that have no legitimate security rationale. (That doesn’t mean acceding to Hamas’ cease-fire demands but it means recognizing that a cease-fire that does nothing to address the blockade – as Israel wants – won’t last). [Note: Israel has maintained a land, air and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007. Most observers, including officials representing the United Nations and the Red Cross, consider the blockade to be illegal.] 

Since 2010, Israel has made it easier for goods to enter Gaza. But it still makes it extremely difficult for goods to leave….Essentially barring Gazan exports to Israel and the West Bank — historically Gaza’s biggest markets — is both inhumane and stupid. It’s helped destroy the independent business class that could have been a check on Hamas’ power, and left many in Gaza with the choice of working for Hamas or receiving food aid. In addition to goods, Israel should make it easier for people to leave Gaza, too.

Second, I’d let Hamas take part in a Palestinian unity government that prepares the ground for Palestinian elections. That doesn’t mean tolerating Hamas attacks, to which Israel should always reserve the right to respond. But it means no longer trying to bar Hamas from political participation because of its noxious views.

Without free elections — which means elections in which all major Palestinian parties can run — Palestinian leaders will never enjoy authority in both Gaza and the West Bank nor the legitimacy to make painful compromises on behalf of their people….

Finally, Israel should do everything it can — short of rigging the elections — to ensure that Hamas doesn’t win. Already, polls show that [Palestine President Mahmoud] Abbas would defeat Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh easily…. But Israel could also help ensure Hamas’ defeat by showing Palestinians that Abbas’ strategy of recognizing Israel, and helping it combat terrorism, actually works. It could do so by freezing settlement growth and publicly committing to a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines with a capital in East Jerusalem. That would give Abbas an instant boost.

Hamas’ great ally is despair…Nothing would weaken Hamas more than growing Palestinian faith that through nonviolence and mutual recognition, they can win the basic rights they’ve been denied for almost half a century. Israel’s best long-term strategy against Palestinian violence is Palestinian hope.

By the way, the unemployment rate in Gaza is roughly 50%. Malnutrition is widespread and the water supply is contaminated.

If you’d like a more complete view of what’s happening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and also be exposed to a broader range of opinion than what generally appears in American media, Haaretz was recently offering a one-month subscription to its website for one dollar. There is a much more vigorous and critical debate regarding the Israeli government’s policies in Israel than in the United States, even though the U.S. contributes billions of dollars in military aid to Israel (a practice that should stop right now).

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

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The Maltese Falcon was published in 1929, twelve years before Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade. In the book, Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy have sex, Spade has blond hair and Casper Gutman (the fat man) has a daughter. Other than that, the book and movie are quite similar. The movie even borrows a lot of dialogue from the book, which is a good thing, because Hammett’s dialogue is excellent.

Spade spends most of the novel wandering around San Francisco trying to figure things out. Brigid O’Shaughnessy shares as little information as possible, but since they do spend one night together, it makes more sense in the book than the movie when Spade talks about them being in love. Although she still has to take the fall, of course.

How We Wasted Time Before the Internet – Mathematics Edition

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Or more precisely, how I wasted too much time long before the Internet. Here’s the picture:

SquareWhen I was a little kid, somebody, probably my father, drew a picture like that and challenged me to draw the same thing without lifting my pencil from the paper. That seemed like a pretty easy thing to do. It wasn’t.

Many years passed before my first and last attempt. Not that I spent days and nights continuously working on this, but there were a lot of classes and then some meetings to sit through. And I guess I was competitive, stubborn and/or obsessive.

But one thing that kept me going off and on through the years was the belief that I had successfully met the challenge once, couldn’t remember how I did it and should be able to do it again (too bad I didn’t keep notes).

Of course, I eventually concluded that this was a false memory. The thing cannot be done!

What brought all this back to me was an article at Three Quarks Daily called “A Square Peg for Every Round Hole”. It’s about mathematical puzzles, the most famous being Fermat’s Last Theorem (“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain”). In particular, it’s about 

another enticing mathematical morsel which is still unsolved: the Square Peg Problem (SPP). The history is a bit murky, but it is generally credited to Otto Toeplitz in 1911. The SPP is the conjecture that if you draw a curve on a sheet of paper without picking up your pencil and which begins and ends at the same place, then you can find four points on the curve which form the corners of a square. 

For example, I drew this wavy curve in black and was then able to overlay a square with its four corners intersecting the curve. 

Square 2

(Ok, I cheated and put in the square first and then drew the curve. The other way may be mathematically possible in every case (or not) but it’s not that easy and my little obsession lies elsewhere.)

Maybe mathematicians proved long ago that it’s impossible to draw a picture like the one at the top of this post. Maybe there’s even a name for this particular “mathematical morsel”: the Square With Lines Around It and a Cross in the Middle Problem (SWLAIAACITMP).  

On the other hand, if you know a way to draw the damn thing without lifting your pencil or pen from the paper or your index finger from the mouse – or know why it can’t be done – please let me know.

Update: That didn’t take long. A person going by the name of “X” gave the answer in the comments at Three Quarks Daily after I described the SWLAIAACITMP problem:

This is a cool problem called “Euler Paths”. You can prove it’s impossible for this graph because there are too many vertices with an odd number of edges coming out of them. So there will always come a time when you go into a vertex and can’t get out. This page has the rules: Euler’s Graph Theorems.

Thank you, X, whoever you are.